After seeing Johnny Chung Lee’s wildly popular Wii head tracking video we were highly motivated to add this technology to our iRT ray tracer so colleague Joaquin Madruga quickly coded this function and we hit the road for GDC 2008.

Left to Right, Joaquin Madruga (IBM), Johnny Chung Lee (CM), Barry Minor (IBM) 

At the show we demonstrated two infrared (IR) LED tracked displays. The first was a target scene, similar to Johnny’s, that we created in 3dsMax and the second was a 7 million triangle China town scene created in Maya by our partners at Threshold Studios (Thanks Threshold!!). The target scene was easily ray traced on a single Linux Playstation3 but the China town scene required some real horsepower so we deployed six QS21 Cell blades and rendered it remotely using a GigE connected blade center.

Head tracking produces a very unique virtual window effect where the monitor appears to be a portal into a virtual world. The user wears a pair of IR LED equipped safety glasses which are tracked using an IR camera attached to the Playstation3. As the user moves, the view relative to the screen is computed and ray traced in real-time producing a strong motion parallax 3D effect. The next step for this technology will be passive head tracking using face tracking technology like that demonstrated by Richard Marks in the Sony booth at GDC 2008. What we need now is a passively head tracked 150” plasma with ray traced visuals at 120 frames/sec!!

iRT Head Tracking Video (YouTube)

iRT Head Tracking Video (Quicktime 28MB) 

Still trying to figure out why none of the HTML functions are working for me, so apologies for the text-only posting. 

Today was supposed to start with a Macrovision session on digital distribution, but the speaker never showed, so it was quality time with my coffee and Starbuck's Yogurt Parfait instead.

I next managed to get a seat at the jam-packed Ray Kurtzweil keynote address.  Last time I was in that room was for the Direct Marketing Association's 2007 show which had Richard Branson (of Virgin fame) as the speaker.  He's a very low-key, almost deadpan, public speaker but the audience was still very much entranced with this clearly brilliant mind.  He has a  gift for the understated joking aside, starting with his opening about how "games" in an unfortunate name for the industry given it's real value (a telephone conversation is "virtual", but does that make a verbal agreement over the phone any less real than one in person?  Of course not…so why do we treat games and virtual world interactions differently?")

To set up the topic, what was Games: The Next 20 years, he took a look back.  He observed that 95% of innovative projects fail because their timing is off.  One reason for that off timing is that growth is exponential, not linear, and our thinking processes are based on linear evolution ("there's something in the corner of my coming towards a certain spot…it'll get there in 20 seconds and I better not be in that spot…this is good for cavemen, not for us").  When we look at innovation and pace of change as an exponential function, the overall paradigm shifts become relatively easy to predict.  He then showed plenty of examples: over the past 40 years there's been a billion-fold increase in computing price/performance.  And that pace is accellerating: there will be another billion-fold improvement over the next 25 years.

The result is a democratizing of communications, tools of creation, and tools of production.  Example: his own Kurtzweil Reading Maching for the blind, in 1979 was the size of a washing machine.  You now have a much more powerful version on a smart phone.

So what's the implication for Games?  Well, if it takes >6months to design a game, you need to design it for where the technology/market WILL BE, not where it is now, otherwise it'll be obsolete by the time it gets launched.  Things like computing devices disappear by 2020, replaced by embedded computing in eyeglasses, clothing, mobile devices, etc.  

Definitely lots of food for thought, and not even sure what that means yet.   One of those thinking exercises perfect for quality time with a coffee and yogurt parfait.

So I attended yet another Games summit, this time the Hollywood and Games Summit in sunny Hollywood on Jun 26-27.  Held at the  recently renovated Renaissance Hollywood hotel (nice pool!  Too bad I didn’t get to use it…), it was a small show co-hosted by the Games industry as represented by CMP and Hollywood as represented by The Hollywood Reporter.  IBM wasn’t a panelist or speaker at the event, but I did get a chance to listen to several interesting panel discussions.  Here are some of summit’s highlights, an admittedly biased and limited view (you can go to the summit website for details on the show).

The Opening Keynote was none other than a very raspy Clive Barker, who used a recent negative review of the games industry by film critic Roger Ebert as a backdrop for his interview.  Mr. Ebert basically asserted that Games aren’t artistic endeavors worthy of time like great films or books, which set the blogosphere a buzz a while back.  Clive was expectedly sharp-tongued and tart, but most of his commentary was peppered with expletives which I’de love to reprint here but alas, it’s a family blog (grin).

From a games industry standpoint the discussion was fairly limited to his experiences as an artist and storyteller, and the launch of his new game, Jericho, in the fall of 2007.  Originally started as a book, but he realized it would make a terrible book but a great game.  Which in turn led to an interesting discussion on how games are still finding their vocabulary and that innovation in how stories are told and new worlds created through the medium of games is still young.

The next session was “How Talent Can Cross The Digital Divide”.  To me the most important discussion point was around how strongly the panelists felt about the eventual convergence of the pipeline (example: The Transformers would have benefited from using the same engine to run the game as to generate much of the film’s animation content) and the rise of Machinima. 

The next session, “Shephearding A Property Through The Transmedia Landscape”, had some tidbits.  I wasn’t convinced that the term “convergence” will be replaced with “transmedia” (as a better way to describe the merging of formerly siloed media); to me it’s just another catch-phrase like Web 2.0 (oh wait, that one DID catch on.)

They recommended we all read a book call Convergence Culture - yet another thing I don’t have time to read (I finally managed to finish Tom Friedman’s The World is Flat!).    They also felt that serialized content (Lost, Alias, Heroes) lends itself better to transmedia properties (well of course they would say that, they’re producers of serialized content).  Especially since ensemble writing is needed for narratives, just like games, so it’s easier to use the same creatives and IP to move from one media to another.  Makes sense to me.  One example: Heroes.  Another older example: Alias became a game as a separate licensed deal, but for true transmedia (there’s that word again) integration to happen, especially on the creative side, don’t just sell the IP and give up creative control in the other media, learn how to integrate the creatives, production, experience.  A new example of that: Neil Young’s Majestic back in 2001/2002.  Though it was a commercial failure, it pointed the way towards true transmedia IP.  The panelists felt Neil’s recent keynote at GDC sounded very much like what TV producers go through all the time, hence there’s more commonality there in production processes and project management than gamers or TV/Film producers think there is.

Speaking of which, one of the key inhibitors to that transmedia landscape is the continued siloing between the creative pipeline divisions.  Better integration between the separate divisions, especially in the Majors, is needed.  Film and TV producers need to better educate themselves on games and new media, games producers need to learn how Hollywood really operates, and look for those similarities to their own production and project management – executive production of original IP is very similar (which is why Ubisoft is entering the animation and film studio business!)

Oh, in addition to “transmedia”, another term I wasn’t familiar with but was used excessively by the panelists was “ARG” (Alternate Reality Games). 

The Wednesday morning keynote featured Thomas Tull (Chairman, Legendary Pictures) and Mitch Davis (CEO, Brash Entertainment).  The (only) interesting thing to me that came out of this panel was their “3 big industry trends”: (1) technology innovation (the next gen consoles, rendering, etc.), (2) business model innovation and (3) creative innovation (being able to take advantage of new modes of narrative).  Being the “innovator’s innovator” we are, I have to admit it warmed my Big Blue heart a little to hear that.

The next panel was “Digital Animation Between Film and Games”.  A little technical for me, I’m afraid;  I was a chemical engineer before I became a technology marketer, so while I ‘get geek’, sometimes the technical jargon overwhelms me.  But a few things leap out.  One was the panelists’ challenges with real-time rendering; games have a history of real-time rendering while films have history of overnights.  That’s going to be a challenge as games and film/TV continue to merge; IBM has seen this specific issue in our clients as well.  As a result we’ll see more real-time rendering and film-quality HD being offloaded onto the next gen consoles because they can handle it.  There are limits, of course: asset sharing between game and film can try to be as collaborative as possible, but for the next while it’s going to be mainly around reference and research assets (2D mockups, drafts, etc.), as you can’t often reuse the same models.  One example was in a film like Surf’s Up you might want to see a specific detail like a toenail, while in the game you’de never worry about that.

On the personnel front, expect to see increased staff migration between Hollywood and Games – now that next gen consoles can handle film-quality visuals, a lot of Hollywood creatives are excited about moving into the Games space.  More migration from Hollywood to Games rather than vice-versa. 

There was a swift kick to perceived game company inferiority complexes.   The panelists agreed that games companies really are becoming media companies, so stop calling yourself a “game company”, dammit!  Seriously, I agree that we are seeing more and more similarities in development, distribution, and business structures between games companies and “more traditional” media companies. 

The next panel was “What Digital Distribution Can Do For You”.  I’ve been seeing this issue being discussed more and more, but with the continued heavy reliance on traditional retail distribution (and to a greater degree e-commerce transactions but still physical media), this area is still a little young.  But definitely going to be increasing in importance, so it’s an area the games industry should keep an eye on.  Unfortunately, the panel focused on Lonelygirl15 and Flow, which honestly to me didn’t seem to have that strong an applicability to console or PC games, or even casual games.  I think instead they should have taken lessons from the nascent digital distribution of films, and how MMOGs have started looking at digital downloads of components rather than the core client, and how web clients might evolve and combined with sufficient bandwidth make PC (or console) clients obsolete.  But none of that was discussed so to me that particular panel was a dud.

 Same goes for the next panel, “YouTube, Flash, and the Hive Mind – Afterworld case study”.  ‘nuf said. 

The next panel, “Integrating Games into television”, looked at using machinima to create TV content.  Honestly I didn’t believe some of the panelists’ assertions that the technology is in place to finally create compelling content.  To me it still looks like grainy amateur video on YouTube.  For poking fun at Judge Judy, I’ll buy it.  For a “professional quality” film, TV or game property, nuh ‘uh.

The next panel was “Creating Parallel Community Experiences Between Entertainment and MMOs”.  There was a lot about creative development and cross-pollination, and questions for one another, but honestly no one seemed to put out an opinion you could sink your teeth into.

The next panel was “Shades of Gray: Sharing Management and Production Processes Between Films and Games”, and included the very same Neil Young (now VP & GM, Electronic Arts Los Angeles) I referenced above.  There were a few interesting take-aways boding well for the cross-pollination between Hollywood and Games.  The talents of film business people is becoming much more relevant to game production as cross-pollination continues.  Pipeline convergence is usually strongest at the beginning – creating IP that can move across multiple media best happens at the beginning of the creative cycle.  They don’t think there will be “full” convergence but it is happening – “games are like movies and movies are like games” – is starting to happen, and has been happening at places like LucasArts for over 6 years (being all at the same facility in San Francisco helps, I’m sure!) where we have a consistent pipeline, and have an editor that sits on the pipeline to take those effects and repurpose them. 

Looking for places to share more technology, LucasArts used the example of the pre-visualization tools used on Indiana Jones 4 being used as is their new game engine.  And look for where there are similarities in film vs. game development, for example in how the mythology/universe is visualized.

An interesting takeaway which was rarely discussed elsewhere, and I think is overlooked in the hype surrounding “convergence” or “transmedia”: LucasArts let it slip that remembering the fundamental differences between the media is key for them: film is passive, games are interactive.  Understanding that difference will let you take advantage of the similarities while still best developing for that particular media.  I agree: it’s not about creating the “same” experience for a franchise across the different channels, it’s extending the franchise to surround the participant leveraging every available (and relevant!) channel to that franchise in new and creative ways.  I think that’s a subtle but critical difference.

As far as development goes, no surprise that the #1 misperception of traditional media when it comes to developing games is the amount of time needed to develop the game (they expect it to be much shorter than it really is).  On the creative side, there’s still a significant population (generally older) that don’t “get” games, didn’t grow up with them, and don’t understand that interactivity is central to the core.

There was additional discussion on the pros/cons of licensing vs. retaining IP control.

The Wednesday closing Keynote was with Thomas Tull, Chairman of Legendary Pictures and  Mitch David, CEO Brash Entertainment (and founder of Massive).  To me the most interesting tidbit was Mitch’s Big 3 trends in M&E in general and games in particular: Technology Innovation, Business (model) innovation, creative innovation (new modalities of narrative).  Talk about coming full circle to some of the very things Clive Barker spoke about.  And talk about paralleling IBM’s own research on where innovation is going and what it really means for all industries, not just Media and Entertainment. 

Today, IBM and Vivendi Universal’s High Moon Studios are hosting a first of its kind “jam session” around the IBM-Sony-Toshiba developed Cell processor — allowing for video game developers to explore developing games directly from the Cell processor.

Over the course of two days, IBM engineers and top Vivendi game developers will come together to explore the Cell processor, and conduct “jam sessions” to develop game code which could eventually lead to the first video game developed off the Cell technology itself.

The opportunities and applications for Cell technology continue to grow. Once developed just for the Sony Playstation 3 system, IBM has been looking at opportunities outside of the gaming system itself - to where Cell could be applicable. Mercury Computing is using Cell technology for solutions they have developed in the medical and aerospace industries; IBM itself developed a BladeCenter based on Cell technology, and IBM just recently announced a worldwide contest for University students to develop ideas and applications for future Cell technology use.

IBM was a major participant in the just-closed Austin Games Conference. While I didn’t get to attend too many sessions as I was working the booth, I’m sure many of my other colleagues will provide you different perspectives about the event.We did have some pretty cool news:

• OGSi announced Flagship Studios as a new client for its hosting services. You can read the press release here.
• IBM has started shipping the chips for Nintendo’s Wii console. Not only can you read about the press release here , but Fierce GameBiz also covered the news here –> http://lists.fiercemarkets.com/c.html?rtr=on&s=69l,mq65,1m5p,9r6o,hrfl,91rr,d16t
• Autodesk’s Maya 8 is now certified to run on Lenovo T60p latops. You can get more details here.

This was my first AGC (actually, my first games conference, period), so my initial impression is that is had a nice mix of game developers, publishers, and related vendors. Good traffic on the conference show floor. From my vantage GoPets had quite the booth presence, as did Blizzard, Microsoft (with massive flat-panels showing off some new casual games) and many more.

IBM shared a booth this year with our some of our key business partners in the games industry, including OGSi (our co-sponsor), and PipelineFX. We also showcased some of our own technologies, including running Autodesk’s Maya software on Lenovo laptops, and our IBM Rational products, featuring our latest acquisition BuildForge. Of course you can always go to our Games website to learn more.

The coolest part of our booth there for me had to be the 3D sound that OGSi was showing off. You put on headsets and over a standard broadband connection, you could interact with multiple people in a game with “contextual” sound. For example, if a character was walking around in back of you, you could hear their voice move from right to left. As someone moved farther away from you (or you from them), the sound dimished. If two people were talking to you at the same time, you could hear them completely distinctly, as opposed to the standard mashup you hear on conference calls. And all through a 96 kbps stream…hardly uses up your Cable Modem or high-speed DSL capacity at all.

Here’s some pictures of the event. Our booth with OGSi:

Closeup on IBM’s side

Closeup on OGSi’s side

Our very own Games Guru, George Dolbier

Game video loops from some of IBM’s and OGSi’s customers (I loved the CCP clip for EVE Online, which I used on a webcast last year). Say hi to Derek Wise from Global NetOptix

And of course, it couldn’t have been possible without the incredibly hard work of our very own Tricia Barr.

Tags: IBM , “Austin Games Conference”

My First Austin Game Conference

This was my first time at AGC and I have to say that it was a bit smaller than I expected. The conference only needed a small corner of the (rather large) convention center for the expo area and the meeting rooms. As a matter of fact, it was literally a longer walk from the nearest entrance of the convention center to the action than it was from my hotel to the entrance!

However, contrary to what one might expect from such a small conference, it was surprisingly professional. The expo area was well organized and the meeting rooms were kept neat and all the equiptment seemed to work. So all in all it was a pretty smooth experience.

I had not originally planned to attend, however. Noel Llopis, another Sr. Architect at High Moon Studios had planned what would surely have been a great presentation on Agile Game Development but Noel was called away on more pressing business (But if you are interested in more information, you might want to check out agilegamedevelopment.com). So, I was asked to substitute at the last minute. Although I am a proponent of many Agile methods and Scrum in particular, I wouldn’t be able to do the topic justice on such short notice. So after some discussion we decided that I would present something which I can speak on endlessly with very little notice - my current passion: Programming the Cell processor.

At Vivendi’s High Moon Booth

Along with the local Austin professional developers, it turns out that there are quite a few students and recent graduates that attend the conference. And since we are actively recruiting top talent at all levels, it was a great opportunity to talk to people and promote our studio - we were able to spend some quality time with quite a few applicants and really get into the details of why the culture at High Moon is unique.

Quite a few of those students were prepared with resumes and demo reels and it was really great to feel the enthusiasm for the industry and our studio in particular. I did spend some time helping the students with their resumes, actually. Apparently there is a common format that 90% of them are using which made it difficult to tell them apart. I suggested each person forget about using off-the-shelf formats and write something that is a little more unique - or at least slightly different. Here are a few other problems I saw on resumes and my suggestions for fixing them:

• Being too wordy. Especially at a convention where there’s a very limited time to read a resume. Say things simply. Don’t use 100 words when you can use 10.
• Make it clear what you do. Are you a programmer? An artist? It seems obvious, but put that at the top. If you haven’t narrowed down what you can offer to a studio at least to a basic skill, your probably not going to get anywhere.
• Microsoft Word is not a skill. I suppose that there are jobs for which it is not assumed that applicants can use basic office applications, but this is not one of them. This is especially true for programmers - it just makes your resume look silly. Photoshop and Maya are probably relavant though.
• Put the links to your stuff on the web. A few programmers mentioned that they had demos or sample code on the web but there were no links to that information in their resumes. If you have something special, make sure it’s easy to find when your resume is evaluated again later.
• Don’t overstate your strengths. I don’t expect kids fresh out of school to know everything, honestly - it’s not a problem. But if you are going to say that 3D math is your main strength at least be able to answer a couple of basic math questions. Or if you’ve listed x86 assembly as a strength be prepared to talk shop - I love programming in assembly and if you can’t then even carry a basic conversation about it, it’s a little disappointing. If you’ve just dabbled in something or have only worked with higher level APIs - that’s OK, just be honest about it.

Tapping the Cell

As it turns out, the right people were not informed that I was substituting for Noel. When I arrived, I was not on the list and didn’t have a badge. The staff did a great job of handling the situation quickly though and within minutes I was on my way with a custom hand-written name tag. But none of the schedules or door signs were changed. Rob Vawter from SCEA was gracious enough to mention my presentation during his, and our guys at High Moon really went above and beyond and helped me out by printing a session description and handing them out at the booth - that was really nice.

Overall, I think the presentation went well. I tried to respond to quite a few of the comments I received from my interview with PSINext. Specifically how high-level strategies for Cell programming are applicable to cross-platform titles and the impact of my suggestions on engine design. If you’re interested in the details of what I presented you can get: Tapping the Cell (Slides)

There were a couple of interesting questions that I can manage to remember:

“The basic philosophies between Agile development and the type of data-first design [I’m] espousing seem to share some similarities - is that a coincidence?”

I think the answer to that is both yes and no. Yes it is a coincidence in that any similarities are not there by design. But no, I think the similarities are there because both methodologies are based on the basic premise of knowing what the most important elements are and being prepared to adapt and change them to get practical benefits. I think knowing what’s both real and practical is more important than policy and procedure in programming and the Agile methods are similar in regard to development in general.

“How would you teach these approaches to an established programming team?”

This is a tough question that I still don’t have a great answer to. At the moment, I think the most realistic method is to work with one programmer at a time and demonstrate the real benefits that can be gained from changing their approach and perspective on programming. In general, programmers find it harder to argue with immediate results but can argue about “design philosophies” until they run out of breath.

And the obligatory…

No game development conference would be complete without:

Was it worth it?

Yes. At the very least, as was pointed out to me, it is an opportunity to know better those who we may work with but never get the chance to spend time to really get to know eachother. And the Austin Game Conference has been one of the best experiences I’ve had with regard to being able to spend time connecting not just with old friends and colleagues from other studios, but from my own too. It really was the environment and the people that made this a worthwhile trip.

Online gaming represents a significant and growing presence in the field of global media and entertainment. As another sure indicator of this, the online game industry is getting its very own conference.

Via GameDaily :

Today, Evergreen Events announced the first Online Game Development Conference (OGDC). The conference is designed “to be the foremost source of high-quality technical and creative information for the interactive game development community.” OGDC will take place May 10-11, 2007 at the Fairmont Olympic in downtown Seattle.

If you sign up for their conference update maillist, you’ll have a chance to win free passes. The OGDC is also proudly sponsored by IBM.

Technorati tags : ogdc, game conference, IBM.

I’m finally posting pics from the recent Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose, CA.

IBM’s rather large booth. We had good foot traffic although the show itself was a little “calm.”

IBMer Jesse Stein at the power.org ped.

Is it just me or does Jesse look just a little like Taylor Hicks?

IBM and Microsoft teams won the Design Team of the Year Award from EE Times for the XBox 360.

Cool ducky PS3 Demo

Tags: Embedded Systems Conference , IBM , XBox , PS3

IBM is at the Game Developers Conference this week. Come by and see us at booth #1230.
One of the things we are showing is a demo of the RapidMind Development Platform and Cell BE. From the RapidMind handout available at the booth:
“The RapidMind Development Platform allows developers to use standard C++ programming to easily create applications targeted for high performance processors including the Cell BE, GPUs and multi-core CPUs. In the case of the Cell BE, the RapidMind platform distributes processing across the SPEs without any explicit reference by the developer to the Cell BE. The platform provides a simple computational model that can be targeted by programmers and then maps this model onto any available computational resources in a system. Code can be written once then run in parallel on any of the processors that RapidMind supports.
What you will see at the demo: To demonstrate the performance acceleration available on the Cell BE processor when using the Rapid development Platform, RapidMind has created a world in which the behaviors of thousands of interacting characters are simulated.
In the demonstration (photo below) the Simulation Application is built in C++ using the RapidMind Development platform. RapidMind in turn leverages the power of two Cell BE processors on an IBM Cell blade to perform the simulation caculations. The state of each character (in this case chickens!) is streamed to the Visualization Application where RapidMind is used to map the state of each character onto visualization and to implement the shaders on the GPU.”

Among the executives at the booth are:

IBM: Hina Shah, Director, Cell Ecosystem & Solutions Development, Bruce D’Amora, Cell Digital Media Solutions Architect, Tanaz Sowdagar Marketing Manager Emerging Technologies, and Michael PerroneIBM Research Manager, Cell Applications Group, IBM Master Inventor
RapidMind: Ray DePaul, President & CEO, Stefanus Du Toit, Vice President, Development, Michael McCool, Chief Scientist, and Matthew Monteyne, Vice President Sales and Marketing.

Visit RapidMind at: http://www.rapidmind.net

Tags: Game Developers Conference , IBM , RapidMind, GDC

World Series of Video Games coming to a city near you… maybe
Gamers, rev up your thumbs. Games Media Properties, the company behind the touring GameRiot festivals, has announced their latest endeavor: a series of six gaming tournaments to be held at various locations around the country during 2006. Entitled the World Series of Video Games (WSVG), the tour is scheduled to kick off in Louisville, Kentucky over the weekend of June 15-18, travel to four more cities for additional “circuit events,” then culminate in a December finale that will attempt to match the best players from each local tour stop.

The second day of the NetGames workshop was a bit more relaxed for participants as the program consisted of just technical sessions (see the preview and impressions of the first day here). But the impact of industry participation on the first day was clear — several speakers (and questioners) referred back to some of the comments by the panelists and keynote speaker in their presentations. Day 2 focused on networking, which is the general research area of much of the NetGames community.

Each year NetGames has a session devoted to how network effects impact gameplay in different types of games and this year’s papers studied the effect of latency on MMORPG and racing games. In addition, there was a session on network measurements of games in which the goal is generally to develop a traffic characterization of a certain type of game in order to develop models or just to gain some understanding of the network behavior of games. This work is a bit controversial in that some folks don’t find much use in just measuring network behavior without some ideas about how to improve that behavior, or identifying the implications. I disagree with this view a little (I’m also biased in favor of network measurement work in general) — it takes quite a bit of effort to do a solid traffic characterization. And though it would be nice if these papers could go further, this first step is a necessary one that, if well done, is enough for a full technical paper (in my opinion).

General feedback on the workshop was very positive. As we hoped, the inclusion of significant industry participation was appreciated by the researchers who are very interested in understanding the prospects of their work actually having an impact in real games. For their part, the participants on the industry panel were also very encouraging. One thing that stayed with me was the comment by Grantley Day that one reason why the gaming industry is overtaking the movie industry is that it has a research community contributing to it.

IBM Research is hosting the 2005 NetGames workshop next week at the TJ Watson Research Center in Hawthorne, NY. The NetGames workshop is primarily attended by computer science researchers from academia who share an interest in understanding networked games and in enabling the next generation of online games. Despite the proliferation of games-related courses in university curricula, gaming is still developing as computer systems research area (this is the 4th incarnation of the workshop). The participation, however, is worldwide with about 80% of this year’s accepted papers from institutions in Europe and Asia-Pacific. The explosion in online gaming in Asia, for example, has resulted in govt. funding for games research which I think is largely responsible for the growing research participation from that region.

This year’s sessions continue some of the research trends of past workshops, and also reflect some new emerging areas. There are several presentations on mobile gaming, for example, describing work in modeling gamer mobility, programming mobile games, and measuring game traffic on handhelds. A new research area that has emerged over the last couple of years is providing auxiliary services for online games. In that context, we’ll have presentations this year on ranking services, intelligent server selection, and content distribution.

Perhaps the most exciting part of the program this year is direct participation from folks in the gaming industry. In the past, the workshop has been light on industry participation which makes it hard to judge which research areas are really useful or important for games publishers or developers . Greg Costikyan’s keynote on the future of mobile games should be very interesting — I’m hoping to hear what he thinks the big problems are in mobile gaming, especially since we have quite a bit of interest in mobile/handheld games in the research community. Also, given the business model for wireless access in the US (i.e., high priced data access), I’m curious if he thinks connected mobile games will ever materialize here. Greg just finished a stint working for Nokia research advising them on mobile games. The panel session should also be very useful for the attendees, as we’ll have varied points of view from the gaming industry including online game development, production, technology, and marketing. This is where I’d like to see the industry give it’s feedback to the researchers as to what work they find useful (or useless), and where they think things are going in the areas of networking, security, voice, and others. Finally, we have a lunchtime talk from David Brandt, one of the lead network programmers on EVE Online, the MMORPG from CCP Games. David will describe the design decisions that went into the networking architecture of EVE, as well as how they addressed scalability challenges. Overall, I’m looking forward to a great workshop this year.